Chapter 18 Sable
Sable
The nosebleed started before Cara finished dragging Maren from the room.
The familiar pressure built behind my eyes, the taste of copper at the back of my throat—and I turned away before anyone could see. My hand came up to my face just as the first drop of blood hit my palm.
Shit.
I'd pushed too hard. Five interrogations in rapid succession, my gift straining to taste every lie, every half-truth, every bitter thread of deception that coated Maren's words like poison. It was more than I'd used in months. More than I should have attempted in one sitting.
But they'd needed answers. He'd needed answers.
I glanced at Harkan. He was still standing where he'd been when Maren confessed, his hands braced on the desk, his head bowed, his shoulders carrying the weight of a grief I couldn't begin to fathom.
His father had killed his sister. Had orchestrated the whole thing just to break him.
And it had worked.
I wiped the blood on my sleeve, turning away so no one would notice. Trouble pressed against my ankles, his amber eyes too knowing, and I sent him a sharp mental command to keep quiet. The last thing Harkan needed was to worry about me on top of everything else.
"Harkan." I kept my voice soft, approaching him the way you'd approach a wounded animal. "Hey. Look at me."
He didn't move.
Through the bond was a roiling storm of rage and grief and something that felt dangerously like despair. Likely, the same despair that had swallowed him whole after Helene died. The same darkness that had kept him trapped in his wolf form for decades.
I wasn't going to let that happen again.
"Harkan." I touched his arm, and he flinched like I'd burned him. "I need you to come back to me."
Slowly, painfully, he raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin.
"He killed her." The words came out broken. Hollow. "My own father. He—"
"I know." I stepped closer, sliding my hand up his arm to his shoulder. "I know. And we're going to make him pay for it. But right now, I need you here. With me. Can you do that?"
Something flickered in his gaze. The wolf, maybe, or just the part of him that was still tethered to this moment instead of drowning in the past.
"Three days," he said quietly. "In three days, I have to stand in front of him and pretend I don't know what he did."
"No." I shook my head firmly. "You don't have to pretend anything. You just have to survive long enough to destroy him."
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. "You make it sound so simple."
"It's not. Nothing at all about this is simple." I cupped his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. "But you're not alone anymore. Whatever happens at the Mating Moon, you don't face it without me. You hear me?"
The bond pulsed between us—warm and steady, an anchor in the storm. He reached for it, let it ground him the way I'd let it ground me last night.
"Not alone," he repeated, like he was testing the words. Learning their shape.
"Never again."
He pulled me against him, burying his face in my hair, his arms banding around me so tight it was almost hard to breathe. I let him hold on. Let him take whatever he needed.
Through the bond, the storm began to quiet. Not gone—nowhere close—but manageable. Contained.
For now.
But even as I held him, the guilt gnawed at the edges of my heart, taking chunks out of me as I tried to stand strong.
This was happening because of me. The fire. The betrayal. The coming confrontation with his father. All of it traced back to one simple fact: Harkan had promised to free me from Varro, and now his entire pack was paying the price.
If I'd never come here—if I'd run when I had the chance, if I'd never let myself matter to him—none of this would be happening.
The High Alpha wouldn't be sanctioning violence against his own son.
Maren wouldn't have had a target to aim her resentment at.
Six pack members wouldn't be injured, and a child wouldn't have nearly died.
I could have disappeared. Could have slipped away in the night and let Harkan forget I ever existed. Instead, I'd stayed. I'd let him in. I'd let him bite a claim into my throat and bind us so tightly that my presence was now a weapon being used against him.
You're poison, that small voice whispered. Everything you touch turns to ash.
I shoved it down. Buried it deep. Harkan needed me strong right now, not spiraling into self-hatred.
But the guilt remained, coiled tight in my chest like a second heartbeat.
We stayed like that—him holding on, me holding him together—until a knock at the door pulled us apart.
Cara stepped inside, her expression grim. "Sorry to interrupt, but we have problems."
"Of course we do." I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face. "What now?"
"The first packs will arrive tomorrow morning. Maybe sooner, if the weather holds." She crossed her arms, her gaze flicking between Harkan and me with an assessing look. "We need the tent city set up by nightfall. The clearing by the temple is ready, but we're short on hands after the fire."
Harkan lifted his head. Some of the devastation had faded from his expression, replaced by the grim focus of an Alpha with a job to do.
"Pull everyone who can be spared," he said. "Double shifts if needed. The ceremony space has to be ready."
"It will be." Cara hesitated. "But there's another problem. The watchtower."
My stomach dropped.
"Other packs will see the damage," she continued. "They'll ask questions. Wonder if we're weak enough to attack. The High Alpha's allies will use it as evidence that you can't protect your own territory."
"Then we don't let them see it." The words came out before I could stop them. Both of them turned to look at me. "I can glamour it. Make it look intact, at least from a distance."
Cara's eyebrows rose. "You can do that?"
"I've done it before." Not on something nearly this big, but they didn't need to know that. "It won't hold up to close inspection, but if we keep people away from that section of the stronghold..."
"It could work." Harkan was watching me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "But you've already—"
"I'm fine." The lie tasted sour on my own tongue, which was almost funny. "Let me help. Please."
He held my gaze for a long moment. I kept my expression neutral, willing him not to push, not to dig, not to use the bond to feel what I was desperately trying to hide.
"All right," he said finally. "But Cara goes with you. And if you feel even slightly off—"
"I'll stop. I promise."
Another lie fell from my lips as the spike in my head pulsed harder.
Harkan narrowed his eyes, but I cut off any prodding with a quick peck on his lips.
The walk to the watchtower didn't help my head one bit. Each step sent a fresh lance of pain through my skull, but I kept my expression neutral, my pace steady. Cara walked beside me in watchful silence, shooting me occasional glances that told me she wasn't entirely fooled.
But she didn't push, and I didn't explain—a small mercy on an already terrible day.
The watchtower was worse than I remembered.
In the daylight, the damage was stark and ugly—blackened stone, collapsed beams, the acrid smell of ash still hanging heavy in the air. Pack members moved through the wreckage, salvaging what they could, their faces grim.
Six injured. A child nearly killed. All because one bitter woman wanted a whisper of a position that most likely didn’t exist. I had half a mind to let Harkan rip her guts out on the front fucking lawn, but I swallowed the anger down. It wouldn't help right now.
Focus would.
"How big an area?" Cara asked, her eyes scanning the destruction.
"The whole tower and the surrounding courtyard.
Maybe fifty feet in every direction." I was already reaching for my magic, pulling it up from that well deep in my chest—the well that was far shallower than it should have been.
No herbs to bolster me. No totems to draw from.
Just my own reserves, already scraped raw from the interrogations.
This was going to hurt.
"Stand back," I said. "This might be... dramatic."
I closed my eyes and let the power flow.
Glamour magic was tricky. It wasn't about creating something from nothing—it was about suggestion. Convincing the eye to see what it expected to see instead of what was actually there. A whisper woven into the air itself that said nothing's wrong, nothing to notice, move along.
Normally, I'd anchor a glamour this size to something physical: a carved stone, a bundle of spelled herbs, a mirror to reflect the lie back on itself. Without an anchor, the magic had to come entirely from me. From my blood. From my breath. From the marrow of my bones.
I built the image in my head first. The watchtower as it had been—solid stone, intact roof, windows glinting in the sunlight.
I traced every detail in my mind's eye: the weathered grain of the wooden door, the moss creeping up the northern stones, the way the light caught the iron fixtures.
I held that image until it felt more real than the ruin in front of me.
Then I reached into my chest and pulled.
The magic didn't flow—it tore. It ripped out of me like something living, something that didn't want to leave, and the pain was immediate and blinding.
My vision went white. My blood turned to fire.
Somewhere far away, I heard myself scream, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of power flooding from me in a silver tide.
It crashed against the ruins like a wave breaking on rocks. It sank into the charred beams, the shattered stone, the ash-stained earth. It wrapped around each broken piece and whispered, “You are whole, you are whole, you were never broken.”
The glamour fought me—reality always fought back against lies—but I was stubborn and desperate and too stupid to know when to quit.